Problems uploading pics for avatar or "profile"?

I've just communicated with a mod, who suggested I post this thread.

I'm having trouble uploading pictures to TWO of the THREE places where we're supposed to be able to upload (1. avatar; 2. personal (profile) pic; 3. Album). I've been successful only in uploading pics to the Album.

Anyone else frustrated by this? If so, please speak up here. There are lots of new members, and I see quite a few avatar-less posts.

Others, who may know simple things to do to accomplish the uploading, please lend us your wisdom.

Since the instructions for doing these things are sorely lacking, I'm also going to ask that someone post a "sticky" outlining instructions at the top of this forum when we're done.

I'm going to explain the problem(s) I've run into in perhaps too much detail, since I know there are lots of other folks who, like me, are pretty clueless in these kinds of things. Also, someone can chime in and say, "well, after you do X, did you remember to do Y"?

1. Avatar

A) When you go into "My Controls" and click on your avatar settings, one of your options is to choose an existing pic from the HUGE base gallery of avatars. I've been able to use an existing pic successfully. But HOW DO YOU UPLOAD A PIC TO THAT GALLERY?

B) If you try to upload an avatar pic from a file on your computer, it tells you you're limited to 50 kB. There's a box at the bottom of the avatar apparatus that says, "Image Scale On", and says it will scale down your pic so that it can be uploaded. (Side note: since there seems to be no alternative to "Image Scale On", it must ALWAYS be "on", huh?, as opposed to someone having to activate it.) But it won't scale down any pics I've tried to use WHY? Will it scale down only pics under a certain number of kB, or pixels?

Do you have to post your pic in some application outside of PC, cut it down to size, THEN upload it?

2. Personal picture

Not too many members seem to post pics on their "profile" page, so this may not concern many people.

When I tried to upload the same pic here, it simply stalled and gave me an error message, reading "Upload failed. Contact staff for help..." The instruction says this pic can be as large as 1500 kB. Mine was 700. WHO CAN HELP WITH THIS ONE?

I'll stop there and see what the response is.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny @ Apr 27 2006, 10:01 PM) [snapback]246487[/snapback]</div>

I don't even know how to answer that, since a print has never been made of it. I connect my digital camera to the computer and the software that came with the camera uploads images from the camera to files. When I look at the "properties" of the picture, it tells me how many kB. How do I also know what "size" it is?

Do you mean some "default" size, if a print WERE made of it, like 3" X 4"?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny @ Apr 27 2006, 10:23 PM) [snapback]246494[/snapback]</div>

OK, it says 2048 X 1536 (Dimensions)
Size: 703 kB

 

Well, screw it. teddy b says on another thread he doesn't know how to upload pics onto a post, which is another question I had. But no action on this one, so I give up.

 

Downloaded Picasa, fooling around with it, got a couple pics cropped and uploaded.

 

Between the 27th, when I first posted, and the 28th, as indicated above, I fooled around with Picasa (free from Google). I simply cropped both the pic that's now my avatar and the kitten's pic. Both were then uploaded by PC---even though the avatar pic is 73 mB instead of 50!

The 2048 x 1536 is what was on the original Canon image.